


run the rake through the ash ( i fell in love with the littler things )

by sapoeysap



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Dino Charge
Genre: F/F, F/M, Healing, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon Fix-It, Ranger Romance 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 15:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17685833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapoeysap/pseuds/sapoeysap
Summary: there is no guide book to life, which is something every person deals with.there probably should be a guide book to balancing life post ranger hood though.or the one where there are hills, mountains and reflections by people who deserve love (and receive it)





	run the rake through the ash ( i fell in love with the littler things )

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ATLPanther](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ATLPanther/gifts).



> Remember when power rangers super dino charge (2016) invented love with  
> 'Life is like a triceratops, And you know I love you triceralots, And Dino that you love me too.'
> 
> 💛 happy valentines day 💛

Shelby stands in the grass and feels the world shift.

(it’s shifting always, but this time it’s a more permanent life altering sort of shift)

Shelby stands on the hill and overlooks her town, the beach and the museum and the sun falling down the sky. Wonder’s if it was called Amber Beach for the way the slipping sunlight cast a honey glow on the sand, tinting the world amber. Or if it’s called Amber Beach for everyone in it, was preserved in rock and stone from long times ago, only to be freed by the parallel universe she exists in now.

Warmth, from the sun is leaving her skin, she stands on the hill and wonders why she feels so alone. She’s saved the world, but it wasn’t this world she was fighting for. She saved the world, but it cost her two friends.

Shelby stands on the hill where the breeze is warm, and the dinosaurs are real. And resigns herself to make a change. The mourning period is over, she’s a fighter and a learner. She’ll make it through.

 

There is no guide book to being a ranger, just whispered down legacies and phrases of affirmation that weren’t in your brain before. A knowledge that the Morphin Grid works in mysterious ways, guides you sometimes to things. The rangers who are public, are secretive in a sense, no one bugs them much (apart from that one incident with a Cassidy Cornell and bizarrely invasive interviews with an unmasked blue ranger), so it’s hard to get any information from them. As a team you just learn to trust one another, trust the faith the Grid has in you. It’s hard, as a team, not being public, even harder when they realise that they have been split further away from the other teams, into a complete alternate universe. And they can be the only ones that ever know about this.

Kaylee is allowed to know, she knew about Chase as a Ranger and whatever magic Keeper pulled in the splitting of the universes, means Kaylee comes to him with confusion, a simple ‘there weren’t dinosaurs before and now there are’. Chase gathers her in a hug, and looks to the remains of his team, who just nod silently.

Kaylee getting to know, is a small relief, to have one ‘civilian’ in that sense, understand the sacrifice they’ve all made as a team. And it makes her and Chase’s once strained relationship much stronger.

Riley’s off, in pursuit of some academic higher-ness, which is really just a university back closer to home. Family is a good support system after you’ve survived the end of the world. The comfort of the dogs and routine of farm life balanced with study and daily video calls back to Amber Beach.

Tyler, makes his intentions clear not even a week post everything. Holds Shelby’s hand and leans in to kiss her soft and sweet. She’s still in her work overalls, probably smells like dinosaur poop and the rest of the muck she’s just cleaned out from an enclosure. Yet he holds her face like she’s a delicate flower. Every kiss that follows still feels like the first. He pulls away, and Shelby can still taste him on her mouth, like lingering honey, and he rests his forehead against hers and whispers ‘I love you’. When she whispers it back, she realises it’s not said out of grief, but out of true meaning of the words. (He will tell her, a few nights later when they are tangled in each other and letting the moon set on their skin, that he nearly said that he was surprised Koda didn’t come back from the past to interrupt them again)

 

The real surprise, out of it all, is the way Kendall handles it. Calmly, routinely she reorganizes everything to allow for the museum to run as a zoo, gets up and goes jogging, enrols onto an online course about dinosaur upkeep. She does everything like a good adult, except for maybe the fact she closes off from everyone. Shuts herself down from the outside world.

It’s a roundabout way to snap her out of it, there running out of ideas quickly, and are close to having an intervention for Kendall, until Shelby realises what will snap her out of it. G-Ma does her job perfectly, they must clue her in on everything. But it’s a price worth paying just to see Kendall smiling again.

 

Tyler’s an intuitive boyfriend, a vow he made to himself a long time ago, to not end up like his father, to never be a disappearing act on the people he loves. He’s doing a good job of that, but at the same time he knows he’s not everything to Shelby. Just happens, that if the way to fixing it is to shatter his world view on monogamy, he’s willing to do so, for Shelby.

Kendall smiles around Shelby, the same way a knight used to make her smile. He stumbles upon them one day, in the hastily rebuilt ruins of the base, Shelby planting a kiss with unsteady hands onto Kendall’s face. He leaves them too it but explains delicately to a panicking Kendall not hours later that he’s okay with it. She’s the one that plants a kiss in return onto his lips. Bold and happy. (It never happens again, and Tyler’s certain it’s for the best, but he treasures the memory, plays it through his mind every once in a while, with a smile)

Maybe it’s a bold decision, but it feels right, when he pulls into a driveway and turns around from the front seat to see his girlfriend, and his girlfriend’s girlfriend in the back of the jeep. He’s brought them to his true home, in the mountains that carve between Amber Beach and Silver Hills. Brought them to the root of his family tree, his grandmother steps out all beaming smiles and lavender scented air.

Home clears his mind, mountain air and grandma’s gentle words of encouragement. To bring Shelby and Kendall here, to show Shelby how he grew up, for her to experience it with everyone around her. Grandma get’s it all with a shrug and throws a picnic basket and four heavy duty climbing bags into the back of the jeep.

Nothing bonds people like learning how to scale a cliff face. So much is required, Tyler say’s it’s an easy route and Grandma Navarro chooses to belay. The chatter is easy, so are the shared affections. Hugs when Shelby powers her way through a tricky spot, after falling down a dozen or so times. Kendall expressing more emotions than she has in a long time, something about elderly female figures helping her relax.

The three of them, slowly, one by one, make it to the top of the cliff face, haul themselves over the rock and look back at the world that unfurls before them.

Kendall breaks the awed silence.

‘We did this, we saved this all you know.’ her voice is a quiet whisper, getting louder as she continues. ‘And it’s tough because i… we lost everything, but to see it all in front of us, means I know it was worth it’

She plants a delicate kiss on Tyler’s cheek, he feels more than see’s the damp of her tears and wonders how she kept this part of herself hidden for so long. The way the three of them had harmonized to some N-Zed Boys song on the radio early on, the way that she spoke all of her words so sure and allowed herself to feel emotion that back when she was just his tech girl, he would have never thought her capable off.

It feels right to tell her he loves her, she gets the way he means it, from the way her body shifts against Shelby’s. And Shelby, who can see the long-extended necks of the diplodocuses from this point of the mountains, the dinosaurs she had long thought relegated to history, he tells her that he loves her. Her kiss is tinged with the salt of tears. But he knows deep down that they are tears cried for the right reason.

Everything becomes free, in that moment that stretches out from them. Time passes until he feels a tug on the rope still wrapped around his harness.

‘Time to teach you two how to abseil without the back up of ranger powers then’

All three of them are laughing down the cliff face.

 

 

It’s a perfect date, wears them all out. Post dinner, Navaaro secret family recipe chicken stew (‘Lotsa honey’ Grandma say’s with a wink) they all crash in one bed, it’s a king size squished into a tiny guest room that’s hidden away behind a secret door. She just explains the bed away with a simple comment, ‘sometimes, there are events that require a big bed, just to be close with people and to know you are not alone’. And then she lets loose a big hearty laugh and disappears back down the corridor.

 

None of them wake up until past noon the next day, and after a big hearty breakfast they say their goodbyes and get back into the jeep and drive back down the mountainside and into Amber Beach. It feels right, like they’ve mourned, but now they have each other and it’s almost as good as being a ranger again. The Morphin Grid may be mysterious and cryptic, but not in the same way that love is.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> my favourite part about this whole fic is the random cassidy cornell appearance. very important. 
> 
> title comes from a combination of screaming females - help me and mitksi - a burning hill, which are both songs about recovering from traumas and hardships. 
> 
> i always worry that im poor at characterisation so i didn't flesh out grandma too much, but female figures were the backbone of DC can u imagine if saban had been smart and maybe kaylee aqua ranger.... 
> 
> the dino charge ending still messes with me, but i know any timeline shelby and tyler would be endgame. kendall just happened to be a nice addition here.


End file.
